


Five Things You Whisper On Your Death Bed

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [44]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: (I wrote this instead of crying), (no one really dies - I was just being poetic), Angst, Coping, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hopeful Ending, Post s02e08, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: “I don't know how to fix this,” he murmured, his eyes digging into hers as though he expected all his answers to be hidden inside her. “I'm so tired, Cara... I'm not sure who I am anymore.”And his expectations weren't entirely untrue: so far, whenever he needed help, Cara didn'thavethe answers; shewasthe answer.He would have been ashamed to show this weakness in front of anyone else; with Cara, it didn't feel like weakness, it just felt like a liberation. Another power of Cara's, making unpleasant things a little bit better without a single word. She knelt down in front of him and gently pried the helmet out of his hands to set it down on the floor, then took his hands in hers with a tentative smile.“Sounds like you need a fresh start, uh?”That smile of hers... it felt like it could cure every evil, if he stared at it long enough. His mouth filled with bitterness for how much she had done for him and how little he had done for her. No matter how many times he left and came back on his knees begging for help, she would never turn him down, and he didn't know how he deserved her.“How?” he asked, voice quivering.Cara shrugged. “I don't know. Let's figure this out?”
Relationships: Din Djarin & Cara Dune & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin/Cara Dune
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [44]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 24
Kudos: 95





	Five Things You Whisper On Your Death Bed

“I thought this was going to be the last thing we'd do,” he muttered under his breath—to himself or to Cara, he didn't know. It was almost easy to say, now, with the dusty ground of Nevarro solid and concrete under his feet. The cruiser that had been Moff Gideon's and was now Bo-Katan Kryze's ascended toward the sky, carrying away a battlefield Din hoped he would never see again. He could feel the weight of the Darksaber hanging loosely from his belt—a burden he would have happily surrendered to the proud Mandalorian princess, had she been greedy enough to accept it. But honour, he had found out, was etched more deeply into Bo-Katan than her lust for power, and that was a great credit to her, despite Din's initial judgement. She would be back: the responsibilities this weapon brought weren't something Din would be able to escape from.

Cara stood by him—Cara standing by him in the direst moments of his most recent life seemed to have become a constant he would never be grateful enough for—grinning up at the fading ship with something like fondness.

“I'm gonna miss those people, you know?”

Much like Din himself, her number one rule in life had always been _travel light,_ and that included interpersonal relationships, but a lot of things had changed since their first meeting. In some odd, contorted way, they had managed to gather some friends across the galaxy, which was a novelty they were both still getting used to. The bond tying the two of them together, however, was something entirely different: it had taken no adjusting, no efforts whatsoever. They'd met, something had clicked, and since that very moment they had never been able to stay apart for too long, for better or for worse.

“We'll be seeing them all again.”

He meant everyone: Bo-Katan and Koska, Boba and Fennec, and Grogu. He needed to hear that from his own voice, to prove he believe that.

“Well, I don't about you, but I could use a drink. I have some stupidly expensive ruge liqueur I've been saving for the right company.”

“I should go.”

Cara gave him a deep scowl—half puzzled, half worried—that said, 'Go _where?'_

Din felt stupid. The Covert was gone, the Razor Crest was gone... He didn't have any place to go.

Cara's expression softened. She beckoned him with a nod of her head. “Come home with me?”

In a moment when nothing seemed to make sense or have any meaning, to be offered to go somewhere as mundane and trivial like _home_ felt like a step bigger than he could take. It was what he wanted—what his aching soul needed—the peace and the quiet and the privacy... but he was afraid that if he could get a chance to stop for a moment and allow himself to feel, he would never be able to put himself back together. If he fell apart now, he would never be the same again. Cara had already done too much, she didn't need any more trouble.

“ **I'm sorry**.” He shook his head in a silent apology for the mess he was right now. “I have too many debts with you.”

He should find somewhere else to go, _anywhere_ else, take his brokenness away before it infected her, too. The last thing he wanted was to damage the one person who had never stopped giving and giving to him without asking for a single thing in return. Cara deserved better.

But Cara didn't seem to care much about what she did or didn't deserve. Her stern look said she only cared about Din and didn't know what to do with his ramblings.

“You realise that's not how it works, right?” she asked, sounding vaguely offended. “This is not a job. This is people I care about—people I _love._ We've been in this together all along.”

_Together._

Din suddenly realised he had kept considering himself a solitary hunter despite the depth of the friendship he had formed with Cara. He had failed to realise that all this time she hadn't been just been _helping:_ this was her fight, too. _For the people she loved._

The helmet felt heavy on his head as he followed her into town. Without a word, they walked in the dim light of the dusk, Din's mind busy with questions and doubts that were starting to make him feel sick. Giving up the kid had been a pain he couldn't have imagined; he needed Cara, now, whether he was willing or not to admit it. Cara was the only other person who could give him the sense of belonging he needed not to lose himself in the spiral of uncertainty he had fallen into.

Every time he closed his eyes he saw the two silent tears that had rolled down her face when he had turned to look at her in the control room, desperate for a friendly face, something to hold on to. After he had slipped his helmet back on, she hadn't mentioned that moment of fragile intimacy. It was like she was determined to pretend she had never seen his face at all. If it was for him that she was doing this, there was no point, but he couldn't help the gratefulness he felt toward her for this kindness.

Cara's place was very minimal except in all those that made a house a home: desert plants were scattered everywhere in makeshift vases like food cans and chipped tea cups; a very familiar deep green blanket was draped over the back of the small couch in the living area; a knife Din recognised as one of the weapons he gave her for their job on Sorgan lay in the middle of a plate on the small caf table along with a few shiny pebbles and a couple of dried flowers.

As soon as they got inside, Din took off his helmet—a spontaneous gesture that surprised him, but not half as much as it surprised Cara, who instinctively looked away for a second before reluctantly letting her gaze float back to him again, a bit sadly.

“Do you want something to eat?” she asked. “It's late for dinner but I can—”

“I'm not hungry,” he simply muttered. Cara nodded in resignation.

“A cup of tea, then? Shit, I sound like my grandmother.”

A choked laugh got stuck halfway up Din's throat. Cara's ability to amuse him, even in the most unlikely situations, would never stop marvelling him. He would be a very different person, today, if he had met her earlier in his life.

He accepted the tea and Cara sat him down on the couch, forbidding him to move. He sat with his helmet between his hands, watching his distorted reflection as though it was someone else staring back at him from the beskar. He had never been tempted, not even once, to remove his helmet, before fate made him choose between that and his foundling's life. He could still remember the absolute firmness in his tone when he had begged Cara to let him die. He could also remember how his fingers hadn't been able to let go of her wrists, after she had given in to his prayer.

When Cara came back with two steamy cups of tea, Din looked at her with an unbearable weight crushing his chest. As if sensing his discomfort, Cara put the cups down on the table and turned back to him full of concern.

“I don't know how to fix this,” he murmured, his eyes digging into hers as though he expected all his answers to be hidden inside her. “I'm so tired, Cara... I'm not sure who I am anymore.”

And his expectations weren't entirely untrue: so far, whenever he needed help, Cara didn't _have_ the answers; she _was_ the answer.

He would have been ashamed to show this weakness in front of anyone else; with Cara, it didn't feel like weakness, it just felt like a liberation. Another power of Cara's, making unpleasant things a little bit better without a single word. She knelt down in front of him and gently pried the helmet out of his hands to set it down on the floor, then took his hands in hers with a tentative smile.

“Sounds like you need a fresh start, uh?”

That smile of hers... it felt like it could cure every evil, if he stared at it long enough. His mouth filled with bitterness for how much she had done for him and how little he had done for her. No matter how many times he left and came back on his knees begging for help, she would never turn him down, and he didn't know how he deserved her.

“How?” he asked, voice quivering.

Cara shrugged. “I don't know. Let's figure this out?”

Din swallowed a painful knot. It was unfair of him to unload all of his angst on Cara like this, but if there was someone who could pull him out of this darkness, that was Cara. Cara, who was so much stronger and wiser than he was, despite her deceptive impulsiveness. Cara, who had put everything she held dear on the line to follow him into a potentially suicidal mission that could have been her last. Cara... wonderful, irreplaceable Cara. Where would he even be without her? What would have been of Grogu?

He glanced down at their hands and saw something to hold on to. Saw hope. Saw a chance to get things right, at long last.

“You and me?”

Her eyes shied away when he sought them. She didn't seem uncomfortable, just... guilty. She was still trying to pretend she had never seen his face. This was the problem, though: he needed her to understand nothing had really changed. It had to everyone else—it had to Din himself—but not to her. Cara had seen him all along.

“ **Look at me** , Cara.”

She brushed the back of her hand under her nose with a light sniff. “Can't you just put your bucket back on? This is weird.”

“It shouldn't be.”

Cara's eyes finally found his, warm and hesitant and perhaps a bit scared. They were glossy with emotion.

“I feel bad for being so happy to—” A frustrated giggle escaped her lips. She was holding his hands slightly tighter, now. “Kriff, this isn't right. It wasn't meant to go this way.”

He had almost got her killed on that ship, and here she was, worrying about his bare face. Din fondly ran a hand through her hair.

“Don't worry about me.”

“I can't _not_ worry about you.”

Her indignation made his heart leap. One good thing about this hell he had been through was that it had wiped away so many unimportant layers of Din's life, leaving only what he truly cherished and was ready to die for. That was the green child he had watched walk away with the Jedi master and the woman kneeling at his feet in this precise moment.

A soft smile tugged at Din's lips while his hand slid down Cara's face, curling tenderly under her chin.

“I think **I'm in love with you**.”

Cara winced, backing away from his caress as though he had just said something extremely offensive.

“You're not funny.”

Din tilted his head with an amused grin. “I hope not.”

Cara appeared sceptical but not displeased.

“This is not the right moment to talk about this,” she said, sounding cold all of a sudden. “You're broken and confused, don't say things you might regret.”

If she's said _'Don't say things you don't mean,'_ Din would have had to put up a fight. Both things were true: he was broken and confused, but he had lost enough in these last few days to know what else he couldn't afford to lose. He was stupid once; he wasn't going to be stupid twice.

“ **My only regret** ,” he said humbly, “is not saying anything when you told me you were staying here.”

Cara's eyes went wide in surprise. “That was one year ago.” She was still kneeling on the floor. Din tugged her up and took her face between his hands. He felt famished, still shattered inside but stronger, willing to heal. Slowly, afraid he might scare her away, he bent until his forehead touched hers, and heard her hold her breath. It was arrogant of him to assume she felt what he felt, but hadn't they always been as one, since the very beginning?

“I think I've wasted enough time,” he whispered upon her lips. “So now either tell me it's just me or—”

“Din,” she cut him off with a scoff that could have been a sob. He shook her head between his hands. “It was never just you.”

He let out a feeble, incredulous laugh. “It wasn't?”

“No.” Cara shut her eyes, lips pressed tight together as her throat bobbed. “No,” she repeated, letting him bury her in an embrace that felt like a breath that had been held for too long.

They found themselves wrapped up in each other, Cara's arms a warm, comforting solace in the middle of the dark storm still haunting his conscience. He could sense his helmet glaring up at him from the ground and the Darksaber burning against his side. There was still so much to deal with, but everything felt so much easier with the promise of Cara being by his side.

“Why do we always have to nearly die to get shit done?” she groaned, face buried in his neck.

Din's laugh got muffled by her hair. She had a point.

“The tea must have run cold by now,” she muttered without showing the slightest intention to verify that. Din wasn't willing to let her go just yet, anyway.

“I don't really need it anymore.”

“Sap,” Cara teased, not very convincingly.

“Shut up,” Din snorted. He pressed his nose into her cheek, his lips brushing her jawline in the closest thing to a kiss he could emotionally handle right now. He hoped Cara knew this was just the beginning.

“ **Thank you**.”

“For what?”

“For putting up with an old fool all this time.”

“Watch your mouth,” Cara said, a smirk lacing her voice. “It's the new Mand'alor you're talking about.”

“Don't remind me.”

“Hey, it's okay.” She pulled back just enough to cup her hand around his cheek. “You're a father: if you can handle a toddler, you can handle a bunch of proud Mandalorians.”

Din didn't know about that, but one thing he knew: if all his brothers and sisters out there felt has lost without their homeland as he did without Grogu and Cara, he was ready to fight this war with them. For them. He didn't want to be a leader, but if what his people needed was hope, he could be their ally—he, Cara, and their little Jedi in training.

**Author's Note:**

> As the tags say, I was feeling bad today and wrote this to cope. Sorry if it sucks, I wasn't sure if it was even worth posting, but some parts of it feel decent? Whatever. I'll be back with better stuff, I promise.


End file.
